In situ dry deposition of individual single wall carbon nanotubes on metal surfaces has been studied by scanning tunneling microscopy. The nanotubes are lying parallel over large areas, with a preferential adsorption along the substrate lattice directions, for which the nanotube-surface interaction is maximized. The authors propose a mechanism for the deposition process, where the aligned geometry results from a selective transfer of the nanotubes depending on their orientation relative to the substrate. (c) 2007 American Vacuum Society.